


Empty

by revolver56



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Character Death, Death, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-18 16:42:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18253808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revolver56/pseuds/revolver56
Summary: There are glances and whispers and scents and echoes of laughter hanging in the atmosphere; should I make a simple movement, it may all escape.Two months, five days... I have never felt more mortal.-Deacon is struggling to cope with the loss of a second lover.





	Empty

**Author's Note:**

> This is... a very difficult thing for me to post. Specifically, Deacon's characterization is something EXTREMELY delicate to me, and this - to me - feels like I am throwing it out the window; deliberately, to write angst. However, I perceive his vulnerability after losing, again, as follows. 
> 
> Inspired by "Real Death" and "Swims" by Mount Eerie.

I can't go into our bedroom. 

I have approached the door at least fifteen times in the past two months, but I cannot physically able myself to grasp the knob and turn. 

I find myself afraid of what I will find, despite knowing what is already in there. 

However, now that I sit in the hallway, staring at the wood I'd helped you scrape and smoothen from a small tree in our little community — to make the door — I am making realizations. 

I am beginning to consider I am afraid of what I will not find in there. 

Dare I be cliche, allowing myself to come outright and confess what won't be there when and if I open that door. That would be too easy, wouldn't it? Accepting everything? 

Two months, five days — I'm not anywhere near accepting it, but I'm becoming increasingly worried I may be coming to terms with it. 

There are a million little details engraved in the air that lies behind what was once a small oak. There are glances and whispers and scents and echoes of laughter hanging in the atmosphere; should I make a simple movement, it may all escape. 

There are identical initials you childishly cut into the wall; worn, ripped and dirty clothes in the corner; your third favorite rifle against the wall; unmade dark blue and white bedsheets; the squeaky floorboard by the dresser; a picture of your ex-wife and young son stashed under the floorboard and a picture of you and I from twenty years ago covering it; a broken pair of my sunglasses, your skull bandana, an emptied shot of whiskey, and a shabby lamp on the nightstand. There should be remnants of gunpowder, blood, piss-poor laundry soap, and sweat clinging to our sheets. The air should smell fresh, and the cloth covering the three windows should be damp from earlier's light rainfall. Sunlight should slip through where the cloth doesn't cover, revealing particles of dust. 

In the room, the loudness of your laughter, your gravelly voice, the light in your green eyes, your muddy boots, the way your back arches, your blood from the times you've needed patched up, your desperate tone when I would do something just right, your calloused hands and how gently they caressed, your scarred expression excitedly pointing to the sky at night, your grinning wolf-like teeth, your tears and the way your bottom lip trembled — every little bit of you has been in that room and fills it. A life I live and breathe, exotic and full and kind, should exist endlessly inside such a simple space. 

Yet, when I find the courage to finally enter, the air is stale and as I feared — two months, five days — I do not find you there. 

As I feared, a weight strikes me like bricks on a pebble, and I come to terms with it. 

Two months, five days, you have lived as nothing but a corpse. 

A room, so lively and wonderful and bright, has never felt so cold and dark, no matter the sun that is trying to sneak through the wet, make-shift curtains. 

You are non-existent and I have never felt more mortal, staring at our initials in the wall, my feet unable to move an inch. 

I stand in the same spot, until something clicks inside of me, and I am frantically grabbing the blankets from your side of the bed and hastily searching for any signs of you. Nothing remains, and the panic I feel is immeasurable as I move to our dresser, retrieving your shirt. Everything fails inside of me as I catch not even the slightest familiarity in the smell, and I turn desperately to our laundry pile in the corner. I am devastated to find only the stench of dirt is consistent. 

I am a pathetic excuse for tears, willing myself to bang on the floorboards in front of our dresser, until one squeaks particularly right. I tear it from its place and trembling fingers pinch the corner of our photo, lifting. 

My knees are to my chest, frustration pursuing my mood as my tears make it difficult to focus on your younger face. You were thirty-two, grinning with your arm slung around my shoulders, your hair disheveled and a drink in your hand. 

This is all I have. 

Once this hits me, and I process it completely, I sob absurdly. I will never hear your voice, see your eyes squint with laughter and glow golden under the sunlight, feel your caress, fix your little wounds, or be loved by you ever again. 

You are gone, and this is no longer our bedroom, but an empty space with tasteless air and agonizing memories. 

I do not return to the empty room. 

You aren't there.


End file.
